The United States is a country some thirty times the size of the British Isles

By 1860, the American population of 31 million had passed that of Britain's 30 million

Fifty years later, with 91 million, it was twice the British total

The country was characterised by great popular mobility, as the search for land moved westwards

The political structure of the United States evolved into a loosely decentralized federation, which fostered notions of regional identity

Communication routes did not all lead to a single centre, as they had in England, where London had acted as a cultural, political, and economic magnet

To begin with, dialect differences originated in the various parts of Britain from which the original settlers came

Eventually, settlers adapted English to cope with a new range of physical and environmental conditions – deserts, deltas, forests, prairies, high mountains, new fauna and flora, patterns of indigenous behaviour

They brought customs from different cultural backgrounds - the fact reflected in American vocabulary: